No escaping Tesco after Scottish islands move

Tesco has completed its geographical conquest of the nation by acquiring stores on three far-flung islands.

Britain's biggest retailer is to open its most remote supermarkets in the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland after buying shops operated by a rival company.

Its move to the islands, and to Wick in the north of Scotland, gives the retail giant - which dominates the nation's £120 billion grocery market - outlets in every corner of the country. It also means that it is now represented in all but one of the nation's 121 postcode areas.

Remarkably, given that it has moved into Stornoway, Kirkwall and Lerwick, the only Tesco-free zone in the UK is now Harrogate, the Yorkshire spa town.

The new stores will open on the Scottish islands in May after the retailer bought six outlets from Somerfield.

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The shop in Stornoway will have the distinction of being the only Tesco in the country that will not open on Sunday. The Isle of Lewis is one of the last areas of Britain in which the Sabbath is recognised as a day of rest, and islanders have long fought against Sunday ferries and Sunday opening.

Douglas Wilson, Tesco's regional director, said the company was delighted to be moving into the islands.

Rhona Macleod, a housewife in Lewis, was also thrilled by the announcement as she has been in the habit of catching a ferry and driving 70 miles to shop at her nearest Tesco on the mainland.

"For too long people have had to travel to Inverness or Dingwall to shop at Tesco," she said. "It costs a car and a passenger over £120 just for the ferry and by the time you have paid for your fuel and overnight stay, the bill soon adds up.

"Now we can shop on our island, it is just fantastic. I feel like we have come into the modern retail age."

But the retailer's seemingly inexorable expansion is unlikely to be met with universal acclaim. Its dominance of the market has been widely criticised, and it has been accused of driving small shops out of business.

An estimated £1 in every £7 spent on the high street goes to Tesco, and one study found that it was the market leader in at least 81 of the 121 postcode areas - up from 68 in 2005.

Its dominance has also given rise to the derogatory term "Tescotown", which has been used to describe places dominated by the chain at the apparent expense of other retailers.

However, after an 18-month investigation into the country's supermarkets, the Competition Commission concluded that Tesco was not dominant enough to prevent competition from its rivals.

The commission stopped short of recommending that it sell any of its stores, but suggested a new planning test that would make it easier for rivals to open a store if Tesco was already the main retailer in the area.

Somerfield said employees of the six stores involved in the deal, including two in Paisley and Aberdeen, would transfer to the new owners on May 12.